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The article is a summary of the essay 'Musica e Politica' (Music and Politics) by Boris Porena, which was published in Italian in the book Musica e Politica (Messinis, M. & Scarnecchia, P. Musica e Politica. Marsilio Editori: Bologna, 1977)
Nowadays (i.e. 1970s), both in capitalist and socialist countries, politics as discourse and action affects the whole society, even if a political regime does not want to admit it. Political discourses and actions are our culture: which means to refer every expressive act to the togetherness of intersubjective functions (social, therefore political) that mould an actin a way and not in another. Indeed, politics is first and foremost and instrument to analyse any experience, even the daily ones: therefore politics is linked with scientific thought, which also characterizes deeply our culture.
Music is Politics. If we really believe that everything is politics, then the perception that music is too, does not add anything special to our belief; however, if we do not believe it, this claim do not convince us of the contrary. Therefore, rather than attempting a reflection on the union of these two terms, it is necessary to analyse the product of these two fields in action.
The issue addressed in this essay, according the limits stated by the title, is: how is it possible to act musically in a political perspective? But most importantly: what does it mean to act musically?
It is possible to act musically in many ways: performing, directing, composing, writing music, organizing and controlling the market, distributing and making money, or, simply, just listening. Additionally, the division of labour the shaped our societies implies that each action must have a specific role (although their integration should be required). Accordingly, the political, separated the communication of music in a productive part - reserved to the few- and a receptive one - for the many-, dissociating the speaker from the listener, and specializing the later until his/her cultural atrophy.
However, the limit between the two is not a line, but a field of probability in which we move: it is a matter of consciousness, which is the political perspective we need today. Not a musical revolution or a revolution through music, but rather attention to what society proposes us, that is the mortifying subordination of who knows to what he/she knows.
Additionally, it is necessary to examine the events to extrapolate the hypothesis to elaborate adequate and coherent responses. In our case, the binomial music-politics, the design of a different use and circulation of music in our society is required to forecast also the actions on pre-existing structures, either in accordance or against them, making hypothesis that find their foundations in the real, not in the possible.
To act effectively, in fact, it is necessary to base the hypothesis on the structures established within society and to delineate a methodology and a cyclic. Although free initiative and autonomy are apparently excluded from this method, producing the hypothesis of these initiatives ahead, make them part of the programme and the control would grant their respect and execution. This is visible in the unconditional freedom of culture, which produces its own dysfunction within a society ( a fate not a too different from that of dissent). Apparently, in contemporary world, this is the operative sense to attribute to politics in its association with other fields, such as music.
Regarding music, until now we considered it simply as a container to fulfil with 'good' political contents, in opposition with others which are not. Accordingly, we obtain a politicized music, subdued to the political discourse: an example, can be a song of protest based on traditional models. However, there is also a 'political' use of music: for example, in Hungary, music (was)* used as an effective instrument of ideological repression.
Essentially, the issue of politics and music regards the methodological connection between the motivations and the objectives. Supposing these are both 'good' (democratic, progressive, etc.), it remains to determine if the developed method used them as external points of reference, characteristic that would make the method permeable and elastic to changes (although it does not mean that it has to accept every change proposed), or as concepts internal and substantial, making it rigid. The method that today is substituting the precedent is that of a method able to transform itself, taking advantage of the environmental objections. Indeed, probably these systems can already be designed through the available cybernetic systems, but to create them, many specific and interdisciplinary competences are necessary, and more than anything, a strong political will.
Indeed, even the union of music and politics needs this political willingness, otherwise it remains only a slogan. We are assisting - not matter if with joy or regret - to a deep transformation of the cultural discourses and of their deriving social roles. The social disarticulation produced by class contrapositions and the division of labour, in turns, tend to saturate the political consciousness of the masses. Which is not the greyness of the same, but rather the organic integration of the different. This integration is not only the objective for which the method is researched, but the method itself, is the itinerary and the destination toward which we walk.
Is this transformation possible for music? I cannot say if it is possible for, but definitively with music, even with music, as long as it is possible to individualize an horizontal methodological and interdisciplinary model on which it is possible to orient and compare real processes. Such a model is probably unreachable, but what matters is the movement to reach it, the following approximations.
Matters the fact the many are already moving.
* In the original text, the author used the word ‘is’. Since the text was written in the late 1970s, when Hungary was still part of a different political regime, I found it appropriate to use the past tense of the verb. Still, some reflections might arise.
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If you are interested in the topic, you can find interesting resources and information at Music and Politics, open access, peer-reviewed, academic journal and you might also consider to join the online course Music and Politics: An Introduction.